Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (19 page)

But their help didn’t end there.

Some people might be surprised to learn that after that Zephyr Stick ad came out, when we told our families about
our feelings and explained our reasons, they took us seriously right away. In fact, they all agreed to meet that same evening for a big gathering in Stella’s living room. All our families were there, plus Lyle, Naomi, Rajeev and Mrs. Reznik. The battle lines had been drawn, it seemed; it was time to gather our allies and plan a strategy.

The thing was, Mo, Charlie, Olivia, Stella and I had come up with a new idea. It was kind of a
risky
idea, though, and maybe even a little crazy, and it made each of us nervous just to think about it. Which was why we wanted to go over it with everyone. Before we ended up making a huge, stupid mistake, we wanted to know what our friends and families thought.

Everybody listened as we walked them through what had happened with the ad and our conversation with Mr. Decker. We told them the new idea and asked for their opinions.

It would be a lie to say that there weren’t mixed feelings.

“This is serious stuff. You do realize that, don’t you?” Stella’s mother glanced meaningfully toward Charlie, as if she thought he’d be the most likely of us to see reason. I guess it made sense. Out of the five of us he generally
was
the calmest and tended to keep his head during tense moments. But right then he looked as unsure as the rest of us. “Even if you kids can pull this off,” she continued, “you need to realize that there’ll probably be repercussions.”

Mo’s mother was just as concerned. “Don’t you think you’ve caused enough trouble for yourselves? Monu, you can’t fight every battle that comes your way. When does it stop?”

“But, Maa,” Mo answered, “didn’t you and Baba always teach me to do the right thing even when it isn’t easy? Well, this might not be easy, but we think it’s important.”

Even Mrs. Reznik had her doubts. “I don’t know,” she
said. “Your hearts are in the right place, but I wonder if you’re taking on more than you realize here. And doing this would require an awful lot of work in a very short time.”

But we knew that. We all understood.

There were more than twenty people in the room that night, and the whole group talked it over for more than an hour. Believe it or not, the one who spoke up for us first, the person who sort of turned the tide in our direction, was Mo’s dad.

“Here’s what I think,” he said, and right away everyone else went quiet, because until then he hadn’t said a word. “I think I have never been prouder of my daughter and her friends than I am right now. If Lemonade Mouth can do this, I say let them. And I will help in any way I can.” A hush fell over the room. This was
Mo’s dad
, probably the most conservative person there, a man who seemed to have a hard time saying okay to
anything
. A yes from him was a big deal.

Mo stared, her lip quivering.

After that it wasn’t long before we had the go-ahead. Lyle, Naomi and Rajeev were with us from the start, of course, and the younger kids in the room—Mo’s sister, Madhu; Stella’s little stepbrothers, Tim and Andy; and my own little brother, George—were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. What was more, everyone said they were all in this with us. Everybody would pitch in to help.

Which was good news.

We were going to need all the help we could get.

Before our plan had any chance of working, we still needed approval from one last person. It was Stella who called the production office of
After Midnight with Chet Anders
. We
assumed we’d have to leave a message, but somebody answered. Stella explained to the receptionist who she was and that she had an emergency situation to discuss with the producers. To our surprise, after a few phone transfers we found ourselves on the line with none other than Chet himself.

Try to imagine it.

There we were, five kids from Rhode Island, standing around a speakerphone talking with Chet Anders, the subversive underground hero of late-late-night television. And yet as unbelievable as it felt, it happened, and Chet turned out to be a nice guy.

“So I hear you kids are having some issues and need to talk,” he said. “What’s up?”

Mr. Decker had already arranged all the particulars of our upcoming appearance. The plan was that we would do a short interview with Chet and then perform “Let Us Begin.” But now, in a tone that sounded surprisingly levelheaded for Stella, she explained to him what was going on and told him our new plan. Chet listened. As the details came out, we heard him start to chuckle. I knew we had him then. He liked the idea.

By the time we hung up, we had his approval.

There was a part of me that felt almost disappointed when he said yes. If he’d said no, things would have been easier and a lot less risky. In a way, it would have been a relief. Instead, things had just gotten serious. We were going for it.

All I could do now was hope we didn’t screw it up.

Putting me in charge of the volunteer dancers was Stella’s idea. The plan was for Lemonade Mouth to put together a special performance for a television show called
After Midnight with Chet Anders
, and my job was to choreograph a routine for the new song the band had written. Everything had to come together—the song, the costumes, the dancing—in only one day.

The pressure was rather intense.

I felt glad Stella had so much confidence in me, but I was secretly panicking. I’d never choreographed anything like this before—a dance for nondancers to perform on a show that would be seen across the whole country. How on earth was I going to pull this off?

But then I remembered being on the movie set with the great choreographer Shiamak Davar. I had spent two whole days watching him and studying his methods. Surrounded by chaos, movie executives and hundreds of dancers, Shiamak had been like a tranquil guru, the calm master of his art in the center of a mighty storm of activity. Three or four times I watched him retreat to a corner to meditate for a short while, and each time he disappeared he would then return with a new idea.

So that is how I decided to begin.

I set to work as soon as I arrived home with the Banerjees after the meeting in Stella’s living room. First I removed my shoes. I sat myself cross-legged on the floor and closed my eyes. It was already late at night, and I do not know how long I stayed that way, taking slow breaths and stripping away my terrified thoughts one by one. But it worked. In time my panic faded, which meant I was able to concentrate only on the new song. Stella had given me a rough recording—they had written it that afternoon—and despite the poor recording quality, the music itself was wonderful, with a strong, almost Middle Eastern beat, like a cobra slinking through the sand. A year earlier I’d gone with an older cousin to a dance club in Khulna, where the music was raw and wild and nobody left the dance floor all evening. This song reminded me of that.

For me music is all about movement. As much as I hear it, I also
feel
it. Now, as Lemonade Mouth’s new song played through my earphones, my head wanted to spin back and forth to the beat. With each rattle of Charlie’s vibraslap, my body yearned to duck and slide.

Crassssh. Boom, boom. Spin. Tappa-tappa
.

Crassssh. Boom, boom. Sliiiiiide. Tappa-tappa
.

In my mind I was imagining turns and flips. I knew we would not have any professional dancers for the show, of course, so I needed to keep things simple, yet somehow still visually impressive. To accomplish this, all I had at my disposal was the music and my own instincts. And one day.

This was my challenge. This was my moment.

Everything that mattered came down to that.

Crassssh. Boom, boom. Drop-lock. Tappa-tappa
.

Jump. Boom, boom. Sliiiiiide. Tappa-tappa
.

With my eyes still closed I rose to a standing position. It was time to let my body do the thinking. At first I simply swayed back and forth, shifting my weight and taking in the coolness of the floor against my bare feet. I raised my arms slightly, like a bird lifting its wings. I was calm. It must sound strange, but as I stood there alone in my temporary bedroom far away from home, I could almost feel the energy flowing through me. I was focused and ready—at least as ready as I would ever be.

I opened my eyes.

For most of that night I stayed up, working. Long after everyone else had gone to sleep, I was still awake in my room, mapping out moves and ideas.

Early Thursday morning another crowd gathered, this time behind the high school. This second gathering had even more people than the first. Apparently Naomi and Lyle had made phone calls to put the word out, and by eight a.m.—a time when many American kids would still have been sleeping, I’m sure—the field by the school parking lot was swarming with activity. People arrived by the carload. Adults and kids, all friends of Lemonade Mouth who were there because they wanted to help the band. It was remarkable to watch. Naomi walked around with a clipboard and
organized everyone into teams, each concentrating on a different aspect of the preparations for the show. Some were to create costumes with Sydney, others would help make props or work with the band’s equipment, and still others would run errands or gather materials—or whatever else was required. When Naomi saw me she pointed to an area near the band’s equipment. There were already eleven volunteers there, waiting for me.

My dancers.

“Go get ’em, Rajeev!” Stella whispered. “Show ’em how they do it in Bollywood!”

“Um, okay,” I whispered back. “I will do my best.”

My earlier panic had snuck up inside me again. I looked into the line of eager faces waiting for me to start giving instructions. Stella squeezed my arm and showed me the thumbs-up sign, and just looking at her made my heart do a double skip.

I took a deep breath.

It’s incredible how everything can change in only a few weeks. Even as I began to talk, explaining my vision for the dance, I was remembering how just a month earlier I had been dreading my move to America. For a long time I had been sure this was going to be the worst summer of my entire life.

I was wrong. As it turned out, I was enjoying every minute of it.

I got the message from Naomi Fishmeier the night before. Lemonade Mouth needed help, she said, and they were
asking for volunteers to meet them the next morning. She told me it was important.

I didn’t need any persuading.

Lemonade Mouth is a very big deal to me and a lot of kids I know. That past year they were at the center of the storm at our school. They’d changed things and made them better—and had even inspired me to take up an instrument. I’d bought myself a bass guitar and was taking lessons, all because of them. If those kids needed help, I was glad to give it. And besides, I knew that whatever Lemonade Mouth was planning, it was bound to be a good time.

First thing I did was call Scott to tell him he should come along. Just as I knew he would, he hesitated, saying that he wanted to but he felt weird about it because of all the stuff that had happened between Lemonade Mouth and Mudslide Crush during the school year.

“Mo’s gonna be there,” he said, as if somehow that closed the door for him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Mo’s gonna be fine with it. She’s with Charlie now, and you’re with me, and everybody knows that. It’s time to put the past behind you. Come with me tomorrow,” I said. “You’ll be glad you did.”

There was a pause before he answered. I knew he thought I was a little headstrong sometimes, but think he secretly liked that about me. People always think of Scott Pickett as this confident, cocky guy, but believe me, he’s supersensitive and a lot less self-assured than he comes off.